Unbeating
by bloodstar
Summary: Las Vegas is becoming overrun with vampires, and life just isn't the same at the crime lab. A series of oneshots. Nick and Greg slash.
1. Greg: Unbeating

**Title: **Unbeating  
**Genre: **Angst.  
**Pairing: **Nick and Greg  
**Main Summary: **Las Vegas is becoming overrun with vampires, and life just isn't the same at the crime lab. A series of oneshots from each character's point of view.(slight crossover with BtVS)  
**Chapter** **Summary: **Greg doesn't like the new Vegas.  
**Author's Note: **Okay, this was supposed to be the Buffy/CSI crossover from xkacie's wishlist, but the fic went where it wanted to go, so I don't think the Buffy part entirely translated.

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UNBEATING

Greg sighed as he stumbled through the front door, eyes barely cracked open, head nodding forward as the need for sleep threatened to upend him where he stood and land him flat on his face on the welcome mat that had already been ceremoniously moved from the front stoop to the front hall for the night.

The door swung quickly shut behind him and locked with a satisfying double-click, automatically, because he rarely had the energy required to lock it himself when he finally _did_ make it home after a long shift at the Crime Lab, but Greg barely heard it as he let the CSI outer vest that he'd worked so hard for drop carelessly off his shoulders, landing heavily on the ground with more of a wooden clank than bindles and gloves could make.

A small black tube rolled out of the top pocket, shaker clicking plaintively as it made its slow trip across the room, and bumped against the wall. He stared at it blankly knowing that he should pick it up, seeing as the holy water mace was about his second-most useful defence against the usual suspects at the scene, but not really having the will to stop his sleepy momentum, lest he never make it to bed.

By the time he reached the living room, he'd shucked off his holster and almost completely useless gun just in time to dump it alongside a few perpetually dusty tomes on the ugly coffee table that Nick had dragged over from his old apartment, and kicked his shoes into a corner alongside Nick's blood-caked boots.

Tired feet and sore legs dragged him the final length of the hallway, his body's in-built autopilot straining to do much more than sway him in the right direction as the night's aftermath threatened to wear him down into a pile of aching scars and over-exerted muscles.

The bedroom door opened before he even knew he was turning the knob, and the sight of the half-occupied bed was almost enough to make him cry, but the power to his tear ducts had long ago been redirected to the quickly-hardening muscles in his legs, and all he could do was feel the burn of _need_ as he slid between the sheets.

The body in the bed shifted and turned, smooth as butter, and leaned over him with the gracefulness of the undead; soulless eyes, with somehow-lingering memories of a past life, peering down at him through darkness that hung over the room like a thick fog, the outline of teeth somehow managing to glint in the scant light from under the door, air whooshing into unbreathing lungs, savouring an undetected scent that lingered in the air around him.

"Missed you," a drawling voice that was everything familiar, everything he loved, but, sadly, reminded him of everything he hated about the new Vegas, whispered through the air. Unneeded breath puffed against his neck. Sharpened canines scraped gently against his skin, never biting through, always teasing with the prospect of eternity.

And this time Greg _did_ feel the hot salt of tears kiss his cheek as Nick's cold arms wrapped around him and drew him closer to a chest that no longer moved.

"I know," he murmured, tracing the skin over his unbeating heart with a trembling finger. "I love you, too."

_Fine_

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Okay, I've decided to continue this as a series of one-shots that I can wander back into whenever I get the urge, so each part is not necessarily in sequence with the previous ones. "Wishing" obviously occurs before "Unbeating", for example. And each one shot will be from one character's point of view; their thoughts, etc.

So, anyway, hope you enjoyed. Drop me a line.


	2. Archie: Wishing

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own CSI. Don't think I'd want to own it, anyway. Too much stress.  
**WARNINGS:** Character...undeath?  
**SUMMARY:** There's a vampire loose in the crime lab, and Archie wishes to hell that he'd gone home early. (slight crossover with BtVS)  
**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Okay, I've decided to continue this as a series of one-shots that I can wander back into whenever I get the urge, so each part is not necessarily in sequence with the previous ones. "Wishing" obviously occurs before "Unbeating", for example. And each one shot will be from one character's point of view; their thoughts, etc.

That said, I apologise in advance for my botched nerdspeak. Feel free to flame me for it.

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**_Wishing_**

Archie gasped as he shot out of his chair, heart leaping into his throat and hammering out a new home for itself there as he backed away from the naked figure in the doorway.

The creature was humanoid. He had short dark brown hair and a vaguely familiar square face. He was lean, just this side of thin. The healing beginnings of what looked like a Y incision marred his muscular chest. Elongated canines curved around snarling lips, glistening with saliva and blood. His bumpy forehead, lit by the glow of the big screen and light from the deserted hallway, cast shadows over fevered, jaundiced eyes.

The trekkie in him wondered if this was what it would look like if Worf and Quark somehow had a love child.

The rest of his brain fragmented in fear as the creature leered predatorily at him from the open doorway.

He suddenly regretted ever staying late at work just to avoid Hannah in one of her moods. He wished he wasn't stranded in a ghost town of a lab between shifts, that he'd just gone home on time and faced whatever argument awaited him.

He wished that he'd actually paid attention in that karate…judo…whatever class it was that his brother had dragged him to years ago, wished he hadn't insisted that even considering the classes was perpetuating a stereotype and quit a week later. Right now, all he could remember was how to punch somebody without breaking his thumb, and judging from the look in the creature's eyes, that wasn't going to help him at all.

Most of all, he wished he hadn't questioned Hannah's ramblings about vampires and Slayers. That he hadn't just written off her sudden increase in strength as a by-product of her diligence at the gym. He wished he'd just _believed_ in her, believed that she wasn't crazy.

Because she _wasn't_ crazy.

Because if she was, then he was even more so, since he was pretty sure that standing before him was an honest-to-god, bona fide vampire.

He wished he was home right now, so he could tell her he was sorry.

But all this wishing was getting him nowhere when he was pressed up against a desk with a naked, bloody, _hungry_ predator closing in on him, and he really needed a plan now, but his mind was still racing, and...

Mentally, he pushed the defrag button in his brain.

'Okay,' he thought, and wasn't it funny that his mental voice was just as breathless as he was, and sounded even more scared? 'Ballistics! Bobby's still here! Bobby has guns! Guns make things stop!'

Ah, and apparently his brain was in 'Safe Mode' as well, interesting…

Eyeing the vampire warily, Archie felt around on the desk behind him frantically for a weapon.

A screwdriver? No, Hannah had mentioned something about wood. His screwdrivers were too tiny to do much damage, anyway.

A laptop? Surely Grissom wouldn't mind him smashing evidence to save his life?

A bagged minidisk…a pair of cans…an evidence log sheet…He wished he was more disorganised than this. Where was a stray light sabre when you needed one? He wished he'd taken up ballistics instead of electronics…

The Vulcan Deathgrip? Maybe if he moved suddenly enough he could reach before…No. He mentally suppressed his inner trekkie. Funny how it became that much stronger when he was this close to wetting his pants in terror.

'Okay, deep breath, Arch,' he thought to himself as he wrapped his fingers around the laptop.

The vampire lunged.

Archie swung the laptop in a wide arc, slamming its edge into the vampire's temple, then kicked his foot out, nailing him in the scrotum with the toe of his right boot. That second of distraction was all he needed to skirt past the monster and sprint through the open doorway, carelessly slamming the thick glass door shut behind him before making a mad dash for the ballistics lab.

"Bobby!" he screamed, praying to God that he didn't fall flat on his face before he reached safety, and that Bobby hadn't left yet, and that if Bobby _had_ already left, he'd at least conveniently left a loaded weapon on a counter somewhere. "Help! Anybody!" Because at that point, he could hear the vampire's footfalls behind him above the pounding of his heart, and he could practically feel him breathing down his neck. Did vampires breathe?

Relief flooded his system as he saw a head of curly brown hair pop out of the ballistics lab door, saw eyes widening and saw an arm throw the door open for him, hands frantically motioning him forward.

Archie pushed himself for an extra burst of speed as he felt fingers ghost against the nape of his neck. The vampire was too close.

Bobby stepped back from the doorway, reaching for something on the table behind the door, as Archie dove for sanctuary…

...The exact same moment fingers grasped the back of his collar and yanked him backwards. Archie wheezed, arms reaching for the safety of the ballistics lab which was so close.

Greg appeared at the door, grabbing his hands and pulling him towards him as the vampires bent to sink his teeth into his neck. Archie could feel the sharp edges of the vampire's canines scrape against the skin of his neck as Greg gave one final heave and miraculously pulled him out of his grasp.

Archie flew forward, landing halfway over the threshold of the ballistics lab on top of Greg.

Archie scrambled off of Greg's lap, backing away from the advancing vampire in fear while Greg just sat there with wide eyes.

"Nick?" he heard Greg say in disbelief.

Archie's eyes widened. So _that_ was why the vampire had looked so familiar.

Nick stopped in his tracks, blinking at Greg in confusion.

Before their eyes, Nick's forehead smoothed out and his eyes faded back to their normal colour.

"G…"

Suddenly, Nick hissed, his face slipping back into its vampiric form as his back arched in pain. The sickening scent of burning flesh and some kind of strong chemical filtered into Archie's nose as Nick spun around and ran away.

And Hodges stood there, an empty beaker in hand, staring at them with as much concern as he could muster while still holding on to his smug façade. "You can thank me and hydrochloric acid later," he said with a smirk, walking back to his lab.

Greg slowly got to his feet, staring blankly in the direction Nick had run in. It would take him to one of the emergency fire exits, Archie knew, and into an alley on the dark side of the crime lab. After that, who knew where Nick would go.

Archie brought a hand up to his neck feeling the blood trickling out of the scratches there, the reality of how close he had been to death finally hitting him hard.

"We've gotta get that checked," Bobby was saying to him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Archie panted from his spot on the floor, still reeling from the attack, still feeling his heart pounding.

It was too much.

He fainted.


	3. Grissom: Observing

**DISCLAIMER: **Not mine.  
**SUMMARY:** A month after Nick's transformation, Grissom has noticed a change in the lab.  
**CONTINUITY: **This comes after Archie's part, "Wishing", and can go either way with "Unbeating", really, but I'd say before.

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**_Observing_**

The break room was quiet when he walked in, almost eerily so, which was why Grissom was surprised to look up and find the room occupied. He raised an eyebrow as he rested the file he'd been reading down on a counter and shuffled over to the coffee machine.

Archie Johnson sat curled up on the left side of the black couch, his left foot propped up on the seat and his right leg sprawled haphazardly forward on the ground in front of him. His left arm was wrapped around his left leg, sharing the weight of a half-empty coffee cup with his right hand as he leaned his chin on his bent knee, idly shifting his gaze between Hodges and Greg, the two other occupants in the room. The only sound he made was the light rhythmic tapping of his index finger against the shiny ceramic surface of the mug.

Grissom was surprised that Archie even allowed himself to relax in such a tangled position. Ever since the incident with Nick over a month ago, there hadn't been a time when he wasn't practically at the edge of his seat, on the balls of his feet, prepared to run for his life. And frankly, Grissom couldn't blame him; he hadn't actually been attacked by a vampire himself, especially not in his own little haven in the lab where he was supposed to be safe, but he would imagine that it wasn't quite so pleasant. The fact that Archie still remained with them at the crime lab after all that, when so many others had retreated in fear, was a true testament to his character.

But still, Grissom kept his transfer papers and a recommendation at ready in his desk should the sharpened baseball bat Archie kept next to his chair in the AV lab stop giving him peace.

Greg was tiredly leaned up against the counter next to the coffee machine, staring into the depths of his black coffee –Grissom hadn't even noticed when the man had started to forgo milk- his face blank. Dark shadows seemed to settle in all the contours of his face, making him look somewhat hollow.

Greg was one of his youngest CSIs, one of the few left from his original team, and at another time, was the life of the lab, but these days…

Nick's death and subsequent transformation had hit him the hardest. For days afterwards he had been a, well, Grissom wouldn't say a wreck, Greg was hardly the type to be blubbering in the halls, but even so, there had been an air of gloominess around him, even thicker than the one he held now, if that was at all possible. He became strangely quiet and sedate, and this quiet made it hard to notice the fact that Greg was acting like a worker ant; following orders, yet not entirely thinking for himself. He was still a good CSI, but there just wasn't much energy behind it anymore.

As much as Grissom had been wary of his flamboyance before, he had to admit that he missed it now. The lab was dull without it, and the graveyard shift was starting to feel like its namesake.

Hodges completed the little triangle on the right side of the couch, seemingly deep in thought as he studied Greg's form –thinking of what, Grissom couldn't be sure, but he had no guarantee that it would be helpful to Greg. In any case, Grissom knew that he would soon find out what the trace tech was thinking as he saw a smirk ghost across his face, and a glint in his eyes that Grissom imagined made him look very much like Archimedes after he'd discovered buoyancy.

Hodges seemed to have changed the least out of anyone. While he'd toned down on his brown-nosing just a little, he still maintained his snide attitude with his co-workers. Over the past few weeks, though, Grissom had begun to notice something underlying his usual bitchiness, some ulterior motive that he had yet to come to a clear conclusion about.

Lifting his navy blue, standard issue, LVPD Crime lab mug up to his lips, Hodges took a long sip of coffee before screwing up his face in exaggerated disgust.

"Sanders, your coffee is rank, what are you trying to kill somebody?" Hodges remarked, leaning back on the couch with a condescending, yet somewhat hopeful look on his face as he waited for Greg's retort.

Grissom hid a smile and almost nodded as he took a swig of LVPD's finest sludge. So that was what Hodges was trying to do; draw some kind of reaction from the sullen Greg. The almost-playful animosity between those two was probably the only connection they really had, and in his own way, Grissom supposed, Hodges was probably trying to hold the lab together, and starting an argument with Greg was his way of bringing the old Greg back.

Grissom saw Archie smirk; he'd probably figured it out as well.

When all he got for his efforts was a half-hearted shrug and a sigh, his smug look almost fell away to concern, but in true Hodges form, he persisted when he wasn't wanted.

"I hear you're back to a box boy salary out in the field." Hodges hummed under his breath snootily, flicking his wrist. "I guess you just can't afford the fancy stuff anymore. Bet you wish you never left the lab." Hodges smirked. "I'd let you wash my car for five bucks if I was sure you wouldn't rinse it in acid."

"No, I can still afford it," Greg murmured faintly, none of his usual energy backing the words. Greg glanced at Hodges dully for a second before returning his gaze to the cup. "Nick used to love my coffee…"

Archie flinched, absently scratching his neck as he looked away.

Hodges' face fell in defeat.

If even possible, the silence became thicker, the tension becoming so thick that even Grissom, in his presumed oblivion of human emotion, could easily feel it choking him. It wasn't so much an angry tension as much as it was one of discomfort; each man unsure of how to continue. Greg's unspoken, yet blatantly obvious sorrow seemed to be choking everyone in the room, and if the worried glance Archie cast over his shoulder at Grissom was any indication, it was for a reason that the lab techs knew of, but didn't expect Grissom to.

Grissom _did_ know, however. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't completely oblivious. Not many things happened in his lab that he didn't figure out eventually, and that included the relationships his co-workers had with each other, and with him. He knew very well of Sara's crush on him; indeed, if he'd allow himself the luxury, he would admit that he had a small crush on her as well. He'd seen the long looks Warrick used to give Catherine, had sensed his protégé's attempts at getting closer to his second-in-command. He'd even noticed when Catherine's flirting with Warrick had become just a little more serious just months before her death.

So it was no surprise that he knew exactly what kind of relationship Greg had with Nick. In fact, he had known for quite a while; for at least as long as Jacqui, the lab gossip, had known, perhaps even longer.

He prided himself on his ability to observe anything, be it scientific or otherwise, and come to a logical, and usually accurate, conclusion about it. There was no reason he couldn't watch humans in the same way he watched an experiment, and just like experiments, he liked to have as little variables as possible.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Grissom believed that if he interfered too much, he would become a variable.

But even still, some things he would only learn from asking, and his mask of social ineptitude was a useful tool in those cases.

Grissom cleared his throat softly, gaining the attention of Hodges and Archie, before he spoke.

"Have you seen Nick recently?" he asked Greg, peering over the rim of his cup as he took a sip of warm coffee.

Greg tensed.

Archie shot a horrified glance over his shoulder at Grissom, before casting worried eyes at Greg, slowly straightening up.

Hodges looked like he wanted to roll his eyes at him, but his own instinct to suck up to the boss caused him to school his face into a careful blank as he, too, stared at Greg expectantly. Grissom imagined that he was curious as well.

When Greg finally looked up, it was only for a second before he turned bright brown eyes to stare at some unseen spot on the left wall.

"I…haven't seen him since he…turned," he finally answered. The only thing that surpassed the sadness in his voice was the pure exhaustion laced in the words, like he'd spent the last 720 hours searching for Nick without an ounce of sleep.

And Greg did look as tired as he sounded. His skin was much paler than usual. His once-spiky hair had grown out again, the greasy strands hanging limply around his face, with about an inch and a half of dark brown at the base that Grissom assumed was Greg's natural colour. Slightly puffy eyelids and dark, heavy bags framed his slightly bloodshot brown eyes.

Greg sighed, staring down into his barely-touched coffee before turning around and pouring it into the sink.

"I should…get back to my cases," he murmured as he shuffled towards the door.

"Greg," Grissom called. Greg paused at the door, not turning around. "Go home. Get some sleep."

The man merely nodded in acknowledgement, pushing the door open.

Grissom warred with himself for a millisecond before calling him back again.

"You'll tell me if you see Nick, won't you?"

Greg glanced over his shoulder at him briefly, then continued on his way with a quiet, "Sure."

Grissom nodded his head, draining his cup, then rinsing it out in the sink.

He still thought of Nick as one of his own, no matter what he was now. As long as he found no evidence that Nick was hurting people, was _killing _­people, he could let Greg have his little lie.

The break room was just as quiet when he left as when he'd walked in.


End file.
